Stephen Strasburg allowed one run and struck out nine over seven innings.

Game in a nutshell: For five innings, this looked like so many other games we've seen this season. Stephen Strasburg pitched great but made one small mistake that proved costly. The Nationals lineup, meanwhile, was completely shut down by little-known right-hander Tyler Chatwood. Another frustrating night at the ballpark? Well, no. For that, you can thank Ryan Zimmerman (who doubled with two outs in the sixth to drive in the game-tying run) and Ian Desmond (who once again homered to put the Nats ahead late). Drew Storen then came up huge in the eighth, striking out Carlos Gonzalez and Michael Cuddyer in succession to strand the tying run in scoring position. Rafael Soriano closed it out in the ninth — with help from Adam LaRoche, who made a spectacular play at first base to end it — and that secured the Nationals' first three-game winning streak since May 8-10. They're also back over the .500 mark at 37-36.

Hitting highlight: Zimmerman's game-tying double was nice, sure. But how can we not spotlight Desmond, who for the thirdRead more »

Could Haren be due for a good game tomorrow?From twitter:Danny ‏@recordsANDradio 9sJZimm, Gio & Stras are hitting their stride, Rendon is batting .333, Desi is on a tear, Harper is back soon & the #Nats have won 3 straight.

d'grviii 8 said…With two out in the bottom of the 8th tonight, the Rockies brought in Josh Outman to face Adam LaRoche. He threw one pitch and got one out. Talk about living up to your name.Indeed, but he had some luck involved. LaRoche smoked that ball, but it was hit right to the 2B.

Wow, what a game! So much to like. Stras was impressive. Desi's clutch homer, an oppo boppo no less. Zim made a fine play early on, though I winced on the throw. Rendon just keeps hitting, though his play in the field was little suspect. I decided to tuck in after he dropped the popup in the 9th in order to reverse the karma. It worked. Soriano is just a joy to watch. So workmanlike. UNTUCK! Made a new friend at the park too — young guy who bought one of my tickets on StubHub. Turns out he was born in Palestine, came here at age 13, spent time in Texas and in Montreal — the Expos were his first team. But also liked the Astros. Settled on the Nats when his folks moved to Arlington in '08. Very knowledgable about baseball and the team. (Totally agrees with me about the stupidity of saving the closer in extra inning games on the road.) Oh and he's an M.D., did his residency at Georgetown, and is about to move to Cleveland to do a fellowship in neuro-oncology. Now that's impressive.Finally, in the 2nd inning giveaway, the contestant answered wrong. So the whole row in the section next to hers won a free backpack and T-shirt. Both 308 and I were the beneficiaries of her misfortune! Woo hoo!

When Harper comes back, we need to bat Rendon first, then either Harper or Werth, moving Span back to 7th in the order, or 8th when Ramos is playing again. We simply cannot continue to waste our greatest number of at bats on an unproductive lead-off man. They will probably give Span until the All Star break but so far, Nyger Morgan was a more effective offensive player than Span.ESPN notes the deleterious effect of the swap of Span for Morse in the line-up:But Harper's absence isn't this offense's only issue. Scouts covering the Nationals also believe they've missed the power and presence of Michael Morse (traded to Seattle) more than they believed they would."They miss his home run potential," said one NL scout. "He's left a big hole. Without him in there, hitting behind [Adam] LaRoche, something's missing. Last year, when they had Werth and Harper hitting 1-2, they were scary. They used to have speed at the top, power in the middle and speed at the bottom. They don't have that anymore."http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/9407876/the-washington-nationals-new-realitySome of you who watch out of market games more can say, but it is difficult to imagine that there could be a worse offensive lead-off man in all of baseball than a guy on track to hit ZERO homers with an obp of barely .300. The Nationals have no chance of winning the division with this guy leading off. If his glove is truly as important as some think, then fine, but wasting your team's greatest number of at bats on your starters' 2nd worst hitter after Suzuki is simply asinine.

Hello everyone. I went to the game today. My 2 brothers and I took my dad to the game today. We got club seats.Before my reaction to the game. I accidentally got my family lost on our way to the parking lot (capital parking lot near the home plate entranceI accidentally got my family lost on our way to the parking lot (capital parking lot near the home plate enterance). From my phone, google maps happened to take us by georgetown, which happened to be hosting the premiere of "white house down" And we saw Jamie Foxx, in person 10 feet from our car.The club seats were awesome and the Stars and Stripes club was so worth it the price. Lombi was save on that steal. Strasburg was amazing (my first time seeing him in person). Desi's HR was awesome in person.

WODL, it's Ny*J*er Please, it's not that hard. Agree that we can't keep Span up there all year if he doesn't get it going very soon. Weak ground balls to the right side or lazy pop ups to left just aren't good hitting. But I don't think Rendon is a leadoff hitter. Move Werth back to that spot if anyone.

222, he did. The weather was perfect for the game. Since we had 5 people going in our family, we bought 2 sets of tickets in 2 club sections. My parents sat in one section while my brothers and I sat in the other.

Dueces: great to see you tonight!Have not posted for awhile – just got fed up, not with the Nats (well, maybe a tad) but with all the negativity. Felt like I could handle it better but I did not. Still read Mark & Chase but stayed away from comments, even when we won. Our group was discussing the same issue with Span. If you lead off Rendon and bat Harper 2nd you have your two best hitters getting more at bats during a game which makes great sense. Harper thrived hitting 2nd last year but I think we all know that Davey is slow to change and his idea is Harper is our #3. Reality is, Span is a nice CF'r but has not delivered at the plate like I had hoped. RendonHarperZimmLaRocheDesmondWerthSpanSuzuki (man I hope Ramos heals soon just to give Kurt some rest)5 games outGo Nats!!

Ghost Of Steve M. said…Sonny, I thought the Nats had a 5 game winning streak.June 21, 2013 11:41 PMGhost, you are correct. My bad. I was repeating what I heard on Nats Extra (pre- or post- game). Either they spoke wrong or I heard wrong.

So Rendon has 27 hits in 22 games and Espi had 25 hits in 44 games. Does that make Rendon twice as good a hitter as Espi. Nah, that would be too simplistic. But wait, Rendon's batting average going into tonight's game was .325, and Espi's when he was sent to the DL was .158. Hmmmm. Plus, he had another multihit game. That's 8 in 22 games. Espi had 4 in 44. Hmmm. It's important to remember that Rendon's first stint in the bigs was promising, but not fantastic. When he returned to the minors on May 3 after 8 games he had 6 hits and his slashline was .240/.367/.280. Since he returned he has 21 hits in 14 games! His slashline going into tonight was up to 325/.388/.455.

Also, my parents were right next to johnny holliday in the elevator going up to our seats.And when we were leaving. FP was right next to me in the elevator. FP was talking about zombie and getting zombie masks so everyone can look like Jzimm

.367 for an obp during Rendon's first stint was um… better than anyone on the team but Harper. I didn't notice at the time because he only hit .240 but that was an impressive obp. He only played 3 games at Syracuse and only hit .182. Pretty crummy but only three games and yet, his obp for those 3 games was .357. The kid gets on base. And by the way, that was a ridiculous error call on the dropped pop fly. People raved when Zimmerman made a similar catch on the other side. If a foul pop takes extreme effort to catch, then it is not an error if not caught. The scorer completely botched that call and if he has any self-respect at all, he will change it. If Denard Span can get back to his career obp which has been in free fall for 4 years, then the Nats will have an excellent lead-off man as is. Unfortunately, things don't work that way usually. The best that we can reasonably hope for is a return to his previous overall average and production during the second half, which would mean .340 or so obp and maybe a couple of homers and a few more doubles. His triples are the only aspect that have been on par more or less. He seems like a good guy. Maybe it will happen, but they can't give him much more rope. The were expecting him on base in scoring position a lot. If he isn't doing that, we can't afford to give him 300 more at bats in place of a much more productive hitter. And Denard is way too far into his career to be fooling around with his swing. That whole notion should give everyone pause. He is 29 1/2 years old with 11 years of pro ball under his belt. The best guess is that the league figured him out after his first two pro seasons and it is doubtful he makes it back to those levels.

I to was at the game. Ian Desnond 3 go ahead homers in 3 straight dats.#EatFace.Can Lt. dan pitch well tomorrow? He needs to eat some face.No more losses in June was my cry Tuesday, so I will stick with it.